


all the ashes in my wake

by pendules



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:30:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3901450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Burning things down doesn't prove that you're real," Ronan says. "I know that."</i> </p><p>Four times Adam wakes up in Ronan's bed (and one time they wake up in his).</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the ashes in my wake

1\. 

He thinks it's a dream, at first, or maybe he's hungover, only he doesn't drink. Maybe hungover from something else. Maybe he was sleepwalking; maybe it's Cabeswater taking over like he'd feared.

Only then he sees his bag on the floor next to the bed, and it comes back.

They were studying which devolved into playing pool which devolved into watching some terrible slasher flick. All in all, one of the more normal afternoons they'd had in a while. But then there's _this_ — he's alone in Ronan's bed, and that's — not so normal.

He looks at himself in the mirror, brushes a haphazard hand through his hair. He looks different somehow. The bags under his eyes are less pronounced. He doesn't feel tired for the first time in as long as he can remember.

He finds Ronan in the bathroom-kitchen-laundry and he looks worse for wear. Definitely hungover.

"Sorry about falling asleep on you," he says, trying to keep his tone light. He hopes he hadn't _literally_ fallen asleep on him. God.

"No problem."

"You could have woken me up, told me to fuck off."

Ronan shrugs. "I don't really sleep anyway."

"We meeting at Nino's later?"

"Yeah, I think. Gansey's not back yet, think he was at the library all night."

"Okay. Uh, I have to go." It shouldn't sound so abrupt and awkward. This shouldn't be so weird.

"Yeah. Right." And he almost sounds disappointed, and Adam has no idea what to even do with that, so he leaves as quickly as his feet can take him.

He's definitely not doing that again.

 

2\. 

He doesn't even recognise where he is for a few unsettling moments as he's slowly pulled into consciousness. When he does, he groans and shuts his eyes again, burying his face into the pillow ( _Ronan's_ pillow).

He forces himself to sit up. This time, though, he doesn't remember anything.

*

Ronan's eating Lucky Charms, which is at once bizarre and comforting.

"I'm sorry," he says, only he has no idea what he's apologising for.

"Do you remember what happened?" Ronan asks. And shit, he'd almost think he was concerned.

He just shakes his head.

"I remember getting home, scrying… No idea how I got here, though." Maybe he shouldn't be so calm about this. From the way Ronan's looking at him, he probably should be more freaked-out.

"It was — You were in a trance or something, man. You were seeing things. People." Adam feels there's more to it than that, but he's not ready to ask about it right now.

"You didn't try to wake me up?"

"I don't really sleep anyway." And the first time, it was casual; now it sounds like some kind of excuse.

"Anyway," he continues. "You were practically dead. I had Noah check. Seeing as he's an expert."

"Do you think —?"

"Nah, Cabeswater wouldn't let you." Like it's totally appropriate breakfast conversation. But this is Ronan Lynch, so.

"Do you think it would let _you_?"

"I think — Bad things happen. Even when mystical forests exist. Maybe _because_ , sometimes."

"You're not going to die, Ronan." _I wouldn't let you._

"That's not what I'm afraid of."

"What are you —?"

And that's when Gansey walks in.

"Hey, I didn't know you were here," he says, looking at Adam strangely.

"Yeah, I just passed by to drop off Calc notes." Like that's a perfectly valid reason. He sees one of Ronan's eyebrows raise, like he's amused. "But I have to go to work now."

He doesn't look at Ronan at all as he goes.

*

Gansey takes Blue home, so Adam drops Ronan off at Monmouth.

The engine's idling when Ronan says, "Wanna come up?" He doesn't elaborate, and Adam doesn't ask. But he turns off the engine and follows him anyway.

It's different, the two of them, in his room, in the dark. It's absolutely silent, not even Chainsaw's making a sound. They're suddenly really, palpably _alone_.

They sit on the edge of his bed, and it's kind of crazy to think that he's slept in it twice, because he's no closer than he was before, not to Ronan, not to this, to Monmouth and Glendower and all the unfulfilled dreams inside of him.

"Why'd you leave me here?" And it's no longer _Why didn't you wake me up?_ It's _Why didn't you stay?_ Ronan can tell the difference, he knows.

"Because I thought you were safe. Seeing you here, it made me think maybe you were safe from them."

He kind of shivers involuntarily, thinking about it, about Ronan watching him sleep.

_Am I safe from you, though?_

"I don't need you to protect me," he says, because he needs that to be true. 

"I'm scared that — that you're not _you_ anymore."

"Why would you care about that? You didn't even _like_ me before." And fuck, he didn't mean to say that. Or he probably did. Maybe he did mean to hurt him. And from the look on his face, he hit his mark.

"Well, fuck you too, Parrish."

And then he's leaving, and Adam doesn't know what to do besides stare at the door he's just slammed and the walls that seem to be an extension of Ronan himself. And God, these past few weeks have been weird; it's never been like this before, he constantly thinks about him no matter what he's doing, like he's been infected by being here, or by being with Ronan himself.

He tells himself he's only doing it so Ronan can't ignore him, so they'll actually talk about it, and then he lies down and falls asleep.

 

3\. 

Light is returning to the sky, but Ronan's a dark shadow looming over him as he wakes.

"I didn't mean —" Adam starts.

"Yeah, you did. I always know when you're lying."

"Were _you_ lying?"

"I don't lie."

"Tell me what happened that night," Adam says softly.

"You don't know what it was like — seeing you like that." He turns away from him now, but Adam wants to see his face, so he gets up and slowly walks over to him, places a cautious hand on his shoulder until he looks at him. He looks pretty bad, but not like he did anything reckless last night. Nothing more reckless than usual anyway.

"What — what did I say?" Adam asks, after inhaling sharply.

"You said you were disappearing. You said it was your fault. You kept saying my name. You kept saying sorry, over and over."

 _Gansey_ , he thinks. Or something else. Something just as terrible and unthinkable. Adam thinks that's his curse: knowing too much about things he can never change.

"You can't save me from that. No one can."

"I don't want to save you. I just —"

"I don't need you to take care of me —"

"I just need to know you're _okay_ — God, Parrish, can we leave it alone. It's not like you don't _know_ —"

"You've never _said_ it, though."

"Why do I have to _say_ it?"

"So I'll know it's not a lie."

Ronan looks pissed, but he's not backing down either. Adam wonders if that's the draw of this for him, the draw of _him_ : the challenge. The kind of challenge that usually ends with both of them bruised and scarred. The kind of challenge Ronan can never say no to.

They just stare at each other, and eventually, Ronan's eyes fall away from his, and he shakes his head, says, "I'm not going to say it."

And that's new, that's a surprise, and Adam wonders for a moment if maybe he's broken something between them. Because of his own stubbornness and pride and fucking insecurity.

"Hey," he says, reaching out to gently touch his wrist. Ronan looks down at their hands and then back up at his face, and there's something in his eyes he's never seen before, something burning, like there's a fire inside him waiting to be let out, waiting to consume him. 

Before he can think about it, he tightens his grip and pulls him in, until their mouths meet, almost by accident, because there's nowhere else to go, like a collision of runaway trains. 

Maybe he's hoping to quell the flames. Maybe he wants to draw it into himself.

 

4.

When he opens his eyes, Ronan's face is about three inches from his own.

It's late, he knows; Ronan's probably going to be late for church, and he has studying to do, but a part of him wants to go back to sleep and never leave this bed. At least not until Monday morning anyway.

But that's not — that's not what this is, that's not what his life is.

He extricates himself from Ronan's limbs, gets out of his bed, walks out of Monmouth Manufacturing, gets in his shitty car, drives to his shitty apartment.

*

Ronan doesn't knock on his door, but he gets a text in the late afternoon: _tomorrow after work?_

*

He sits in his car in the parking lot for a long time, just staring at Ronan's stupid mixtape. He'd considered throwing it out the window at 80mph. He wants to break something, but this doesn't feel adequate.

He knocks on Ronan's door, probably for the last time.

Everything looks exactly the same as before, and Adam kind of hates that. He feels there should be some evidence, of last night, of them, of everything he fucked up. It should look like a tornado's been through here; there should be bloody, broken pieces of them strewn around the room.

Ronan looks better than he has in weeks, though. And also extremely breakable. It's almost irresistible.

"Are you scared of me?" Adam asks. _Because you should be._

"I'm trying not to be. Are you scared of _me_?"

"Yes." And it's the most honest he's ever been with him. "You make me crazy."

"You make me crazy too." And it's meant to be suggestive, but there's too much truth in it too.

"No, I mean — You make me do things and think things I'm not supposed to."

"So what? Fuck what you're _supposed_ to do, Parrish."

"I'm not _you_ , Ronan. I can't just —" he starts, feeling helpless.

"What?"

"I can't just _want_ everything. _Want_ is finite for me."

"That can't be any fun," Ronan deadpans.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop _saying_ that." He sounds genuinely frustrated now.

Adam sighs. "What do you _want_ me to say?"

"That I never had any hope to begin with," Ronan says, looking him right in the eyes like he's searching for proof.

"I — I can't tell you that," he says with a small shake of his head, eyes cast downward away from his.

"Then what the fuck are we doing?"

"I don't _know_. I don't know how I feel about you. But it doesn't matter anyway, because I can't —"

"Okay, then," he says calmly. "Walk away."

"Ronan —" he says, urgent, almost pleading.

He finally turns his face away from him, like he can't bear to look at him anymore.

"Nothing has to change, Parrish. But next time you fall asleep here, I'm definitely kicking you out."

Adam wants to reach out, to touch him, to put his arms around him, but he stops himself. He's not going to cry, he tells himself, it's not — it wasn't even really anything yet. They hadn't even gotten started. 

Still, it feels like they've killed something. Snuffed the life out of something beautiful. 

Adam just nods, and walks away from him.

*

It doesn't go back to normal. Adam avoids him as much as he can, and when he happens to go see Gansey, Ronan's never there. He doesn't ever go near his room. Everyone notices, but no one says anything. It's not a real break-up anyway; it's just really fucking hard to be around him now.

Only one night, someone's knocking on his door, and it can't be anyone else.

"You're drunk," Adam tells him.

"Not yet. Just needed to take the edge off."

"Why?"

"You're so stubborn, I hate that," he says, almost laughing through the words.

"And you're _not_?"

"Point," he admits. "So, I figure we're both stubborn enough for this, whatever this is, to go on forever. But I think we'd also be fucking miserable."

"Oh, is that what you think?" he asks, folding his arms across his chest. It's easy to play along with him when he's like this, pretend it doesn't mean anything.

"I think that _you_ think I didn't like you before."

"So?"

"So, that's bullshit."

"I'm pretty sure you fucking _hated_ me after Gansey introduced us."

"I _wanted_ to hate you. And maybe I did for a while. And then I was jealous. Because you were real and I was only half-real. I felt like I could fade away at any time, and you were so fucking _stubborn_. Unyielding. Undeniable. I don't know what I'd do if you disappeared."

Adam remembers that boy in the grocery store and the moment when he realised that Ronan wasn't ever just what he thought he was. He was more and he was less and he was something Adam could _have_ , something he could never let himself have.

"Burning things down doesn't prove that you're real," Ronan says. "I know that."

"What _is_ real?" he asks, feeling like a child.

"I don't know. What do you _want_ to be real?"

"Sometimes I think I dreamt _you_ up."

"Maybe you did," he says, eyes dark and voice low, like he means it.

He tastes like beer, and something else, something sweet, underneath, when Adam kisses him. He touches all his marks, self-inflicted and not, and makes some of his own. He feels the fire burn at its brightest and then extinguish. And in his arms, Ronan's the realest thing he's ever known.

 

5.

Ronan's face is buried in his neck and he's dragging his mouth slowly across his collarbone. When he feels Adam stir, he raises his head to smile at him.

Adam considers saying a number of things, but none of them are right. 

He settles on, "Hey."

"Hey. Your bed is tiny," Ronan says, like it's a truly fascinating observation.

"Get used to it. We're not doing this at your place."

"Oh, so we're doing this _again_ , are we?"

"Depends. You _still_ haven't said it."

"You're an asshole."

"I'm _your_ asshole."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] all the ashes in my wake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7800514) by [ZoeBug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug)




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